Salad of freekeh with courgette, tomato and red chili dressing
It is funny how certain ingredients can all of a sudden be the ‘it’ thing of the moment. Take quinoa for instance.. A food hype that like seems to suddenly spring forward and than everything ‘has’ to eat quinoa. Nothing with that in it self but considering the situation it has gotten the original growers of the grain into, in countries like Peru it might be a better idea to only buy locally grown quinoa (they are now also growing it here in the Netherlands)
Freekeh is another one of those weird phenomena’s. The very first time I posted a recipe with freekeh was in march of this year. The freekeh (it goes by many names) I had brought with me when I went to Dubai. I had seen it in the market there and didn’t know it and you can trust me to try out weird ingredients if I have the chance. So I took it home and cooked a recipe with it from the book of Ghillie James.
In the blogpost I mentioned that it was impossible to find here in the Netherlands. I got a few tips of people who had seen it in a Turkish supermarket or online but that was about it. And lo and behold; not so much later freekeh suddenly appeared everywhere! More and more blogs where reporting about this grain and to my amazement you can now buy it in our local supermarket. Just like that.
Not so exotic anymore right? Anyway, the biggest difference with the supermarket variant I can now get is that is a precooked version, so instead of the 45 minutes it took the first recipe, this freekeh takes only about 15 minutes to be cooked. Not so bad if you’re in a hurry I’d say and the taste is the same.
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Speaking of taste; I love the taste of freekeh. It kind of reminds me a little bit of spelt but the grain is smaller than that but has a bit of a nutty aftertaste. It’s quite good in salads such as this one!
Salad with freekeh, courgette and chili dressing
Ingredients
- 200 gram freekeh
- 100 gram chopped onion
- handfull of hazenuts
- 1 courgette
- mint
- 100 gram cherry tomatoes
- red chili oil or alternatively chop a red chili very finely and sprinkle through the salad for the added kick
- Dressing
- 3 tbsp yogurt
- 2 tbsp red chili oil
- 1/2 tbsp fig date vinegar or another sweet vinegar
- pepper
- salt
- mint
- Optional : some green salad leaves if you want
- Cook the freekeh according to the instructions on the package, drain, rinse with cold water and leave to cool.
- Cut the onion in rings and the courgette in cubes. Bake these in a pan with a bit of the red chili oil until the onion is translucent and the courgette is cooked.
- Add the freekeh and stir together.
- Cut the cherry tomatoes in quarters and ad to the salad. Add some finely diced mint.
- Dressing
- Add the ingredients for the dressing together. Stir well and taste if you need some extra salt and pepper. Ad the dressing just shortly before serving the salad
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
